ANTH 1100 - Introduction to Cultural Anthropology

Credit Hours: 4.00

Objectives:

1. Acquire and institutionalize knowledge of non-Western, as well as Western cultures.
2. Identify, in a culturally relative way, behaviors that disagree with common Western/American means.
3. Understand that cultural norms differ from society to society.

Outcome 2: Upon completion of this course, students will be able to synthesize different approaches to the applications of ethnography, ethnology, and other anthropological techniques.

Objectives:

1. Read ethnographies written by anthropologists.
2. Actively engage in a participant observation assignment.
3. Summarize the alternative methods of study utilized in anthropology.

Outcome 3: Upon completion of this course, students will be able to interpret ethical issues in dealing with peoples of the past and present.

Objectives:

1. Examine the anthropological view of race as a cultural construct.
2. Describe the process by which biological traits are transferred throughout populations.
3. Define ethnocentrism and calculate its effect on global behaviors.

Outcome 4: Upon completion of this course, students will be able to give examples of the diversity in cultural systems.

Objectives:

1. Define culture, describing it in its broadest sense.
2. Illustrate the dynamics of difference in everyday relationships.
3. Differentiate between alternate forms of kinship, marriage, gender roles, and religions, in addition to other behaviors.

Outcome 5: Upon completion of this course, students will be able to apply critical thinking techniques to contemporary problems.

Objectives:

1. Analyze contemporary national critical issues of warfare, instability, and domination.
2. Interpret data and formulate an informed opinion through research, and report on an ethnological comparison of cultures.

• Communication: The graduate can communicate effectively for the intended purpose and audience.
• Critical Thinking: The graduate can make informed decisions after analyzing information or evidence related to the issue.
• Global Literacy: The graduate can analyze human behavior or experiences through cultural, social, political, or economic perspectives.
• Information Literacy: The graduate can responsibly use information gathered from a variety of formats in order to complete a task.
• Quantitative Reasoning: The graduate can apply quantitative methods or evidence to solve problems or make judgments.
• Scientific Literacy: The graduate can produce or interpret scientific information presented in a variety of formats.

What is cultural anthropology?
Anthropologist: Franz Boas

2: What is Culture?

Anthropologist: E. B. Tylor & Ruth Benedict

3: How do you study a culture? Ethnography

Ethical issues
Anthropologist: Alice Cunningham Fletcher, Robert Harry Lowie, Rosita Worl
Participant Observation project

4: Is culture nature or nurture?

Understanding evolution & brain development
Anthropologist: Louis & Mary Leakey, Jane Goodall, Diane Fossey

5: What is language? How do language and culture work together?

Anthropologist: Alfred Kroeber, Georg Friedrich Grotefend, Edward Sapir, Jean-Francois Champollion

6: What do you eat and how do you get your food?

Modes of subsistence
Anthropologist: Audrey Richards & Marshall Sahlin
Food and culture project

7: Does money make the world go around? Examination of gift exchange and valuation of products

Anthropologist: Bronislaw Malinowski

8: Midterm

9: How do we deal with conflict & power?

Anthropologist: Evans Pritchard, Sally Engle Merry, Laura Nader

10: Do all cultures view race in the same way?

What is ethnicity?
Anthropologist: Hortense Powdermaker, Zora Neale Hurston

11: Understanding who we are through gender and sex.

Anthropologist: Margaret Mead, Derek Freeman, Matilda Coxe Stephenson

12: How are we organized?

Family and marriage systems
Anthropologist: Claude Levi-Strauss, Clifford Geertz
Kinship Chart project

13: What do we believe?

Religion & spirituality
Anthropologist: Roy Rappaport, Michael Harner, Sir James Frazer

14: What about art in culture?

How to ‘read’ objects
Anthropologist: Nancy Munn, John Collier Jr.
Reading object project

15: Cultural change, globalization and globalization

Anthropologist: Eric Wolf, Gregory Bateson, Leith Mullings, Paul Farmer, Michelle Rosaldo

16: Review & Final Exam